HALLOWEEN is a mite early to draw conclusions for the season, but already the Elland Road crowd are reduced to ghoulish self-mockery, and emphatically Arsenal, almost without trying, are top of the Premiership. Their four goals yesterday, before Leeds had made a mark, were embarrassingly comfortable, their minds and bodies were able to prepare for the Champions League match against Dynamo Kiev at Highbury on Wednesday and, as their manager says, they are top of the Fair Play League.

As if Leeds haven’t enough on their plate, Mark Viduka, the big and sometimes sulking Australian, was apparently late for training during the week. Manager Peter Reid said: “He was left out of the squad for disciplinary reasons. My philosophy is to keep that in-house, but it will be dealt with privately. All I can add is that in our situation you don’t do something like this lightly, but I’ve got a lot of other players to look after.”

Reid added that he knew nothing about speculation that he had three games to turn results around or lose his job. “I’ve not been told that,” he responded. “I love working at this club, I love a scrap, and I’ve got one. But today I admit the biggest strength of the opposition was their counter-attack. We talked about it, but we couldn’t handle it.”

Within half an hour Leeds were a lost cause. Within the first three counter-attacks that Arsenal so articulately and swiftly sprung, the game was up and the reality dawned on this, the first day of Trevor Birch’s tenure as chief executive, that the club is going to need all of his insolvency expertise in the coming months.

And yet Leeds, somehow, had the first shot on goal, their only one in the first half. It came from Lamine Sakho. It was a tentative prod with the outside of his left boot, causing no bother to visiting goalkeeper Jens Lehmann.

After that, le deluge. In the eighth minute Thierry Henry scored as laconic as you please. He often can look loose and languid and almost apologetic in the art of scoring; this time, from the moment Ashley Cole released him with a looping ball from Arsenal’s half, there never was any doubt about the end product. Zoumana Camara was the only player between Henry and the Leeds goal, but that didn’t last more than a couple of paces. Henry turned up the turbo-boost, Camara didn’t have any, and with a precise touch of his right foot, then a deft placement with his left, the Frenchman had again put the Gunners ahead.

The second goal after 17 minutes was just as simple. Arsenal broke, this time down the right, and Leeds had so many absentees from what they might comically call a defence that there were four yellow shirts against only three in the area. Dennis Bergkamp delivered the ball low and diagonally across the face and Robert Pires, beyond the far post, side-footed in.

Where were Leeds? Where was the fight? They had two supposedly tenacious battlers in midfield, but one, Seth Johnson, was effectively absent. David Batty, now 34, was the opposite: his spite was in full evidence.

How referee Mike Dean managed to abdicate responsibility and to show no card of any colour to Batty in the 24th minute escaped me. The Leeds man blatantly smashed his forearm into the face of Cole, the first real mark of the home team’s intent. After half an hour Batty once more got nasty, deliberately back-heeling the ball against the fallen Pires. When Dean asked him to desist, Batty gave the referee a mouthful and was booked for dissent.

Moments later, direct from a Leeds corner, Arsenal broke the length of the field to score their third. Ray Parlour crossed the ball accurately from the right to Bergkamp. The Dutchman toe-poked the ball against the base of a post, it rebounded invitingly for Henry and this time he scored with his right foot.

The thrashing continued. Within five minutes of the second half Gilberto, whose warm Latin blood required him to wear blue gloves even in this relatively mild autumn, was unmarked, unchallenged, unseen as he side-footed the ball in from seven yards for the fourth Arsenal goal. It followed a free kick, and it tells you everything about the organisation, or lack of it, in the home rearguard that the ball was allowed to travel across the goalmouth before Pires nudged it towards Gilberto.

Reid brought on James Milner at half-time, and then added Aaron Lennon, the apprentice, on the hour. The two youths combined to make a consolation goal for Alan Smith in the 64th minute. Leeds born and bred, Smith’s finish was low, sharp and accurate.

Substitutes: Leeds: Bridges (Milner h-t), Sakho (Lennon 61min) Arsenal: Ljungberg (Edu 71min), Bergkamp (Aliadiere 77min)

Booked: Batty 30, Olembe 51

Referee: M Dean
Attendance: 36,491

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